SAN JOSE -- The prostitute accused in the robbery and killing of millionaire tech investor Ravi Kumra began testifying Thursday as the key witness against her brother and his fellow gangsters, describing in detail how the break-in-turned-lethal was casually planned and carried out in a single day.

It was the second time Katrina Fritz has been an informant in a homicide. The first time was in a 2006 Oakland case when she admitted tipping off two East Bay men to information that led them to kill a churchgoing woman who was a potential witness against them.

Fritz, now 33, claimed Thursday it was her brother DeAngelo Austin's idea to rob Kumra on Nov. 30, 2012. Her testimony came during a preliminary hearing for one of the defendants, Marcellos "Blade" Drummer.

Fritz told Judge Linda Clark that she was a long-time prostitute in the eccentric millionaire's harem and knew the layout of his gated estate. She wasn't there during the crime, but under California law, she is still culpable because the killing occurred during the commission of felony robbery. The robbers ransacked the 7,000-square-foot house, punched Kumra's wife, bound and gagged the couple with duct tape, and let the wealthy investor, who once owned the Mountain Winery concert venue in Saratoga, suffocate despite his wife's pleas to call a doctor.

Fritz testified that it all started when Austin called her in the morning to ask her if she'd seen Kumra lately and whether he had any money in the house.

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"It was weird, out of nowhere,'' she said of the call. "I said, "maybe I should call him and see if he's there.'' I didn't want him (Kumra) to be there because it's dangerous. But DeAngelo told me not to call, (saying), "because if something happens, they'll think you.''

Asked by prosecutor Kevin Smith if she had any regrets about not warning Kumra, she said she did.

"I could, like, probably made it better,'' she said. She said she warned her brother to "be cool'' because Kumra was "getting old."

Later that morning, she said, she helped direct her brother to the mansion when he drove down to case the place. He returned to Oakland, and they met in a parking lot, where she stopped on her way to San Francisco to pick up one of her regular johns, so she could give Austin a drawing of the estate's layout that she had made. She testified that her brother was accompanied by Drummer and another man she couldn't see through the heavily tinted windows of Austin's BMW. Drummer's DNA was found on Kumra's body, a crime analyst for the prosecution testified earlier Thursday.

Fritz is now charged with special circumstances murder and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole or even the death penalty if District Attorney Jeff Rosen decides to seek it. In exchange for her testimony, she is hoping Smith will reduce the charges to robbery, false imprisonment and gang enhancements, which could put her behind bars for a maximum of 17 years.

She will be cross-examined by Drummer's lawyer, Jim Blackman, on Friday.

Fritz described growing up in a world far outside the norm, where crime is king. She first became a prositute at age 13 when she agreed to have sex with a motel manager in exchange for free rent for her impoverished mother and siblings. She began servicing Kumar when she was about 19. He paid her and at least four other women in cash and jewelry. He also bought her one car after another, downgrading her to a Ford Escort after the first two cars were towed because they were unlicensed and she sold the third.

She said Kumra had at least two other children with the other "girls.'' He wanted her to have his child also, she said. She got pregnant, telling him it was his baby even though it wasn't, so he would buy her a house and take care of her for the rest of her life. However, she agreed to have an abortion after the 2008 downturn, when Kumra told her money was tight.

"She had sex with a motel manager to keep a roof over her family's head, she had three pimps before she was 21, who beat, raped and sodomized her," said her lawyer, Ken Mandel. "In some ways, she lost the ability to say no."